Gone, Gone, Gone
by popkaiture
Summary: Centered on Aria's struggle with Ezra's betrayal.
1. Betrayal

Aria slinks behind a tree. Tears run down her cheeks and she covers her mouth to muffle her sobs. She is on the brink of breaking, and she doesn't know where to run or who to call. Her mind focuses on Ezra. 'These things can't be true' she repeated in her mind, but if she didn't think they were true why was she hiding from him? The thought of him made the tears come faster, she thought she could handle this but she can't.

Ezra's voice sounds through the trees and her whole body freezes. She was in her head and not listening for him like she should have been, he had finally found her.

"Aria, why are you doing this?" Ezra yells out to the trees surrounding him.

Chills go up her spine as Aria shivers in fear. She didn't want to believe what Spencer had said, but she found things. Things Ezra shouldn't have, or more importantly things she wished she would never worry about Ezra having.

She hears him walking around her, the leaves crunching under his feet. Her heart races, she doesn't know what to do. She can hear him getting closer, each step weighing heavier on her heart. To her right is more trees, but to her left lies a ski slope. If she could just reach it she could be alone. She needed to process what was truly happening before it unraveled any more. Out of fear or more accurately heartbreak she ran. She could feel him behind her, but she wasn't going to stop. The moment he caught up to her was the moment she lost, and she was going to lose.

Aria kept running, even when her knees tried to buckle on her. The distance felt never ending. "Just a few more steps" she mumbled to herself. Finally her body met the ski lift, her breathing eased as she pulled the bar over her. But she wasn't alone, Ezra had caught up to her and was sitting next to her. His eyes didn't seem evil, in fact she could look at them all day, but she was scared. She wanted to escape, but the lift was already half way off the ground. There was no avoiding this.

"Aria, please. Let me explain myself." Ezra said to her, his eyes seemed to stare into her soul. She couldn't handle his eyes, so she looked away. The tears in her eyes returned, and one tear streamed down her face. Ezra went to touch it, but she slapped his hand away. They were flowing freely now.

"No, nothing you can say will change anything" she had to stop to catch her breath, the tears falling harder "I don't even know you." Aria turned back to look at him, but this time Ezra couldn't face her. She could see the guilt in his face.

"You wanted Ali dead, you wanted her dead," the anger in her voice rising "This was always about her, I thought you were pure. The one thing in this town that was mine, that wasn't tainted by her touch."

Ezra finally met her gaze, offended by her words, "This was never about me and her. I never hurt Alison. This was about her story, Aria. I have been writing a book, a true crime novel."

Aria ignored these words, she still felt the lies told for two whole years. How could he keep this hidden for so long? Even if he was telling the truth, he waited until now to tell her. She felt like she was slowly drifting away from this reality.

"Please Aria, you have to believe me..." His eyes were begging for her attention, anything to insinuate she still believed in him. Ezra knew even thinking this was asking too much.

She mustered the courage to speak again, "What about when we first met? In the bar? Was that a lie too? Was I just something you thought you could take advantage of?"

"Yes," Ezra wished it wasn't true, but he didn't want to lie to her anymore, "That's also why I applied to Rosewood. I was willing to do anything to get the story. But I didn't plan on meeting you and falling in love. I have wanted to tell you, I have been trying for so long. I just didn't want to lose you again."

"Don't." Aria couldn't handle this anymore, this felt worse than anything she could even imagine.

"When I left to look at other teaching jobs, I did think of you every second. I couldn't deny my feelings anymore, and I stopped, I stopped writing it. I gave up the life I had planned because I realized that you were what life was meant to be like." Ezra started to tear up, but he pushed back them from trickling down his face. This wasn't about him, he had already lost her once and he wasn't willing to lose her again.

"Don't!" Aria repeated.

"I have lied about a lot of things, but never my feelings for you." Ezra stared at Aria as he uttered these words, that fact that he hurt the one thing that was most important to him was tearing him apart.

The rest of the ride they waited in silence, every time Ezra looked up at Aria he felt ashamed at what he had done. Aria refused to look at him, she was done for the night. She was ready to go home, even if that meant crying herself to sleep. She never thought Ezra would betray her in this way, she could feel Ezra looking at her every now and then. She felt his hand slide to touch her, but she pulled her hand away and folded her arms across her chest. She let the tears fall, there was no point in stopping them. This was over and she was done.

The lift finally returned to its origin, and before Ezra could say anything Aria stormed off.

"Wait, please." Ezra whispered to her.

She turned around, and walked to him. Each step was one with power, she knew what she wanted. "I want you to leave. I can't face you at school and pretend this didn't happen. I never want to see you again Ezra, the last words I want to hear from you are the ones from your book."

Ezra nodded at this. His heart dropped, hoping she didn't mean what she said. If he could reverse time he would, but they both knew it was too late for that now. Before he could even look back up at her she was gone. Gone from his sight, gone from his touch, gone from his life.


	2. Anger

Aria lay in bed restless. This love story they shared was slowly falling to pieces, so much so that she was starting to doubt how Ezra ever felt about her. Every bone ached, her tear ducts were too tired to cry, it even hurt to breathe. Her chest felt heavier with every breath she took. The only way to fix this was to go to Ezra's apartment and get the truth, whether she liked the answer or not.

As Aria plotted out her mission, she decided it was too late to do anything about it now. She wasn't Spencer, and a tiny pill wasn't going to give her the drive she needed. No, these answers could wait until morning, what Aria needed more than anything was sleep. A dreamless sleep, she needed peace not Ezra lingering around in her head.

In the morning, Aria was ready to get on with her day. She didn't try to doll herself up, her outfit wasn't as lavish as usual. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she couldn't help but laugh, even if it was halfheartedly. "So this is what depressed me looks like," she said mockingly to herself. She grabbed her keys and headed to her car, it was now or never.

She drove in silence. The silence filled the void and it helped her push back the tears that kept trying to escape. The drive seemed faster this way, and before she knew it she was standing outside apartment 3b. She didn't knock. She slid her hand under the doormat to find the key that belonged to her, and unlocked the barrier between her and the truth. Unlocking it felt like a habit, and she despised herself for getting attached in that way. She was simply unlocking a door, not a lifetime of happiness.

Aria was greeted by loneliness when she opened Ezra's door. She asked him to leave, but him actually being gone hurt more than it should. It not only hurt, but it raised this burning anger inside of her. The anger she had been waiting to release since the moment she learned of Ezra's true intentions. Only upon seeing him actually being gone did she realize what she wanted to do. Destroy his apartment, the same way he destroyed their relationship.

She started with his desk where his precious type writer sat. It hit the floor with a clunk, along with the different playbills scattered across his desk and papers that were still ungraded. A picture of them sat on his desk, but shortly it met the wall and was shattered to hundreds of pieces. Aria knew the feeling. Next she headed to his book shelf, she only tossed the ones that mimicked what she was lead to believe their relationship was. First off the shelf was Great Gatsby, next was The Tempest. Something inside her was feeling satisfied. Until she stumbled upon the book that contained the poem Ezra had wrote, B26.

She opened to it, determined to rip it out and shred it but she couldn't. The moment she opened it she was drawn back in, this poem was the one thing to show her that what they had was real. She hated him for writing this, for falling for his charming ways when she walked into that bar. Being mesmerized by his attentive nature, and melting when he kissed her. Nothing felt more magical, but in this moment nothing hurt more.

She made her way to his bed, the sacred ground her friends once called it. She cradled the book in her arms and started crying, she was amazed that her eyes could even still produce tears. But they flowed, heavily and freely, and soon the pillowcase was drenched. She couldn't bear this pain anymore, it was too much for one person to endure.

Her eyes were carrying a burden she was not used too, her blinking slowed and before she knew it she was asleep. Memories filled her dreams, they played out slowly. It was tragic but beautiful, dangerous yet sexy. How could the brain process all these thoughts as once? Soon though the dream to a turn south, and the dream soon became a nightmare. One filled with the fear she felt all last night as she sat beside a guy she once knew so intimately but for some reason he seemed like a stranger and then he was gone, vanished from her mind.

She awoke with someone standing over her, but it wasn't the one face she wanted to see after such a dream. Emily looked down at her, her eyes filled with worried.

"Aria, do you even know what you have done?" Emily asked her. Aria frowned, these were not the first words she wanted to hear.

"Yes," she released the book from her grasp "I just want to go home." When she stood up she was greeted with Hanna's presence as well. She wasn't ready for a double team intervention, and a part of her felt like they should be lecturing Spencer. She felt guilty for even thinking that, but at this point it was the truth.

"Why are you guys even here? How did you even know I would be here?" Aria asked them.

"Because when Caleb left me, Ravenswood was the first place I ran," Hanna answered "The heart wants what the heart wants."

Aria was taken aback by Hanna's sincerity, but she welcomed it with open arms.

"Let's just get you home, before anyone realizes we were here." Emily said to her, not sharing the same openness as Hanna.

Aria agreed, but only because she didn't need to be here anymore. Being in his apartment wasn't going to make him come back, and she wasn't even sure if she was ready to see him again. Instead she broke down, because it felt better than anything or anyone else could make her feel. Gone were the memories, gone were the tears she tried to repress this morning, gone was the happiness she once felt.


End file.
